Salad Instead Crummy Trials

Mia Davis | November 2012

EXPERT FOCUS AREA:

Getting Stanford Students who live in an apartment to pack a homemade salad at least 3 times a week for lunch

Why?

Why?+ Transition to independent living in college :: important time for students to establish sustainable healthy eating habits and preferences

Why?+ Transition to independent living in college :: important time for students to establish sustainable healthy eating habits and preferences

+ Students have limited time :: packing a salad to go is a great way to eat healthy and save money!

SALAD (instead)

SOLUTION:

Statistics on Existing BehaviorsBased on survey of 27 apartment-dwelling college students

56% grocery shop once a week, 81% Safeway, 11% Trader Joes

Once a month

Once a week

Never/ Extremely Rarely

Twice a month

Frequency of Grocery Shopping


63% usually prepare their own meal instead of buying it

Frequency of Food Preparation


52% no meal plan, and 33% apartment meal plan (5 meals/wk + $50 meal plan)

No meal plan

Card Plan

Apartment Meal Plan

Meal Plan Distribution


41% rarely eat a salad, while 33% eat a salad almost every day

almost never

almost every day

once or twice a week

Salad-Eating Frequency

Target group:Students who already grocery shop regularly ~ change one behavior at a time, starting with salad preparation.

Trial #1[Pack] Grab and Go

Trial Participants:

5 students, already go to Safeway once a week.


Steps:

1.Go to Safeway on Sunday afternoon to buy Salad ingredients.2.Come home, pack three salads. Refrigerate.3.On preferred mornings (M,T,W – M,W,F…), grab salad in morning to eat for lunch

Trial Participants:

5 students, already go to Safeway once a week.


Results:

12/15 salads eaten – 2 eaten for dinner instead of lunch


Results:

12/15 salads eaten – 2 eaten for dinner instead of lunch

Participants Said:

“Didn’t want it to go to waste, so I ate one with my dinner instead of for lunch.”“Some mornings I wasn’t craving a salad, but it was already made so it was easy enough to grab.”“Wish there was more variety.”“Was rushed one morning, so I forgot it was there.”


Key Takeaways:

If already prepared – increased likelihood of eating (easy and students don’t want to be wasteful)


Key Takeaways:


Variety – students don’t want the same thing everyday


Key Takeaways:


Variety – students don’t want the same thing everyday

Reminder system would be useful

Trial #2[Pack] Grab and Go WITH REMINDERS

Trial Participants:

Same 5 students, already go to Safeway once a week.


Trial Participants:


Steps:

1. Go to Safeway on Sunday, buy necessary ingredients for salad preparation2. Set up reminders on phone to pack salad as part of nighttime routine and additional reminder to grab salad in the morning3. Pack salad at night, grab in the morning


Results:

13 salads prepared – 13 eaten (out of what should have been 15 in total)


Results:

13 salads prepared – 13 eaten (out of what should have been 15 in total)

Participants Said:

“The reminders really helped. The night one especially, because I knew I made it so in the morning I thought of it immediately when I woke up.”“Consistent reminder was good, but one time I ignored it because I wasn’t home at the time.”

Key Takeaways:

Students responded well to nighttime reminders, and making it PART OF EXISTING ROUTINE.


Key Takeaways:


Reminders only effective as HOT triggers - something students can act on in the moment. If not setup where/ when students can actually make a salad (student at home...), rendered ineffective.


Key Takeaways:


Reminders only effective as HOT triggers - something students can act on in the moment. If not setup where/ when students can actually make a salad (student at home...), rendered ineffective.

Useful to have reminder on computer and phone in case you are not near one.


Trial #3[Pack] Grab and Go WITH TEXTING REMINDERS

Trial Participants:



Trial Participants:


Steps:

1. Same setup as previous week. This time I tried texting at night.2. Texted again an hour later. Participants asked to respond Y/N if they made the salad.


Results and Takeaways:

14/15 salads prepared and eaten.




Asking students to respond increased social pressure to complete task.




Asking students to respond increased social pressure to complete task.

Texting is useful!! ...would have preferred automated, though because I had to remember to send messages...

Trial #4Grab and Go

Trial Participants:

3 students, already go to Trader Joe’s once a week.

Trial #4Grab and Go

Steps:

1.Go to Trader Joe’s on Sunday afternoon to buy 3 PRE-PACKAGED SALADS. 2.Refrigerate salads.3.On preferred mornings (M,T,W – M,W,F…), grab salad in morning to eat for lunch

Trial Participants:


Trial #4Grab and Go

Steps:

1.Go to Trader Joe’s on Sunday afternoon to buy 3 PRE-PACKAGED SALADS. 2.Refrigerate salads.3.On preferred mornings (M,T,W – M,W,F…), grab salad in morning to eat for lunch

Trial Participants:


For increased variety

Trial #4Grab and Go

Results:

9/9 salads eaten

Trial #4Grab and Go

Results:

9/9 salads eaten

Participants Said:

“Liked the variety. Could pick what I was in the mood for.”“Not as good as my own salad.”“I liked the ease of the packaged salad. It was a good shape for my bag and included a mini fork.”

Trial #4Grab and Go

Key Takeaways:

Variety = good.

Trial #4Grab and Go

Key Takeaways:

Variety = good.

Students appreciate freshness.

Trial #4Grab and Go

Key Takeaways:

Variety = good.

Students appreciate freshness.

Creating own salad instilled sense of accomplishment and increased motivation to eat it, whereas premade salad wasn’t as fulfilling.

Trial #5Texting and Social Media

Trial Participants:

Variety of friends/ coworkers and all @saladinstead followers


Steps: 1. Establish “expertise” on Twitter by posting useful tips about healthy eating to followers.2. Tell any friend willing to listen about Salad Instead.3. Encourage followers and friends to tweet photos of salads.

Trial Participants:

Variety of friends/ coworkers and all @saladinstead followers


Results:

In two weeks, 6 followers tweeted photos of their salads (5 were friends).5 friends texted photos of their salads or posted them on Instagram.Many friends texted about new developments in creating habit of salad eating. Texted “I just ate a salad!”


Key Takeaways:

SOCIAL PROOF. I was able to motivate peers and friends close to me to eat more salads. People like supporting their friends and feel an added sense of accomplishment in doing so.

Helping friends help themselves.


Key Takeaways:

SOCIAL PROOF. I was able to motivate peers and friends close to me to eat more salads. People like supporting their friends and feel an added sense of accomplishment in doing so.

Helping friends help themselves.

Unclear how Twitter/FB can mobilize students to eat salads as I didn’t have that many followers (60), and only about 5 were actual students. I retweeted on personal account, and no significant response there. A few retweets. NEED TO EXPLORE THIS MORE

Thanks for reading! I would love any

feedback.

Mia Davis email: miadavis@stanfordtw: @saladinstead

Documents

Salad Instead Crummy Trials